Island Hopping: Skidaway Island raises 'Hymns for Hope'

More accurately, it was a time for “Hymns for Hope,” the annual fundraising musical event staged by the Interfaith Hospitality Network of Coastal Georgia.

The hymns were provided by choirs from eight local churches and soloists Alysa Smith and Roger Moss.

The hope is provided by the Network, an almost all-volunteer consortium of more than 30 local church congregations that seeks to help homeless families get back on their feet.

Via the churches, the Network provides emergency shelter and meals to the families, which stay overnight at the churches while they are assisted with finding employment and housing.

Those attending “Hymns for Hope” at Skidaway Island United Methodist Church experienced an uplifting — and sometimes roof-raising — event featuring the singing of a dozen hymns; the reading of passages from the Bible; a testimony by a young mother of three children who, due to the Network, has successfully transitioned from homelessness to financial independence; and remarks by the Network’s executive director, LaVanda Brown, one of just a handful of the organization’s paid staff members.

The Network, LaVanda said, helps “those most in need in our community — those who don’t have homes.”

“We can do this on a shoestring budget,” she said, “because our volunteers provide meals and housing.”

She noted that “95 percent of folks who have successfully left the program in the last six years are still living independently.”

“Our goal,” she said, “is to end homelessness one family at time.”

Because those served by the Network stay at individual host churches — with each church hosting for a week at a time — participation is limited to three families at any given moment. But each family has a private room on the church’s property and access to the Network’s day center, where the heads of the families are able to prepare resumes, apply for jobs and seek housing through on-site case management.

I feel as though I can commend the Network because I’m a member of a congregation — First Presbyterian — that’s been a host church since the Network was started back in 1997. As such, I’ve watched the Network develop over the past 16 years, and I’ve come to recognize two outstanding aspects of the program.

One is that it’s aimed at providing a permanent solution to the problem of homelessness. The other is that it’s grounded in the concept of having its volunteers interact with the folks they’re trying to help.

When my church hosts homeless guests for a week, more than 40 volunteers get involved. The volunteers eat meals with the homeless families, they talk with the parents about work and raising children, and they spend a lot of time entertaining the kids — shooting baskets on our pre-school playground and putting jigsaw puzzles together and playing board and card games in the church’s hospitality room.

I recall a night a few years ago when my wife and I served as hosts in the evening at our church, and I wound up playing the Connect Four game with an extremely bright third-grade girl who was homeless at the time.

Connect Four is a strategy game for adults and kids, and I played a lot of it with my daughter while she was growing up. I thought I was pretty good at it, but the third-grader defeated me game after game.

She would beat me, then cajole me into playing “one more time,” then beat me again.

For a couple of hours, she beat me like a drum.

I didn’t stand a chance.

But, thanks to the Interfaith Hospitality Network — she did.

To find out more about volunteering with the Interfaith Hospitality Network of Coastal Georgia, email executive director LaVanda Brown at lbrown@ihnsav.org.